​Zlatan Ibrahimovic gives $50,000 to help Swedish learning difficulties team make World Cup

Footballer Zlatan Ibrahimovic has donated $50,000 to help the Swedish learning difficulties team compete at the INAS World Football Championships in Brazil. The team had only wanted a signed shirt, but in the end got far more than they had hoped for.

Ibrahimovic, 32, who is
a national hero in Sweden, missed out on playing in this summer’s
World Cup in Brazil as his country failed to qualify. However, he
made sure that Sweden would be represented at a global event in
2014 by donating the cash.

“Football should be played by anyone, regardless of gender,
disability or not,” said the Paris Saint-Germain forward.

“When [the Swedish national side] missed the World Cup, I was
deeply disappointed. So when I heard about ‘the unknown team’ I
said to myself that I wanted to do everything in my power to help
them to experience a World Cup."

“There was nothing to think about. It was a given,” he
added.

According to Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, the assistant
coach of the Swedish learning difficulties national team, Stefan
Jonsson, got in touch with Ibrahimovic to see if he would be
willing to send them a signed shirt, which they could auction off
to raise funds.

However, upon hearing the request Ibrahimovic said to Jonsson:
“What are you going to do with a shirt?” “When I said we
needed $50,000, he asked for the account number and deposited
it,” Jonsson said.

Ibrahimovic then told Paralympic website handikappidrott.se that
he wanted to do everything he could to help the team reach the
tournament when he heard their story.

The INAS World Football Championships takes place every four
years and is for participants who have intellectual difficulties.
It usually takes place in the same country that hosted the World
Cup in that year. Saudi Arabia has won the last two editions of
the tournament.

This is not the first time that Ibrahimovic has reached out to
help footballers in his home country. In 2007 he helped pay for a
5-a-side football pitch in the Rosengard district of Malmo where
he grew up.

The money will be all but a drop in the ocean, though, for
Ibrahimovic, whose parents emigrated to Sweden from the former
Yugoslavia. According to Forbes, Ibrahimovic is the 12th-highest
paid sportsman in the world, earning around $40 million a year in
salary and endorsements.